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Dante
Dante is the main antagonist of the 2003 Fullmetal Alchemist anime, first introduced in Episode 32. She is a cold elderly woman and a formidable alchemist herself. As the true master of all Homunculi, Dante is responsible for setting in motion the events of the series and the challenges its protagonists must face along the way. Dante does not exist in the manga, as the creator and leader of the Homunculi in the manga is an enigmatic being simply called "Father". Character's history Dante first appears as the former alchemy teacher of Izumi Curtis, who in turn taught the protagonists Edward and Alphonse Elric. Soon after her meeting with the Elrics, Dante faked her death at the hands of the Homunculus Greed, who is in turn killed by Ed, although it is obvious to the viewer that her body was dead before Greed had arrived. Dante's age is measured in centuries. She achieves this longevity through an alchemic technique which allows her to transfer a human soul from one vessel (physical body) to another. The technique requires the use of a Philosopher's Stone. Dante uses this technique to cheat death by tranferring her soul to a new, younger body when her current one grows too old. However, the technique is subject to diminishing returns. Each time Dante transfers her soul into a new body, her soul leaves some of its strength behind, reducing it's ability to sustain the new body. By the time of the anime series, Dante's soul has been so weakened by repeated transference that it has lost almost all of its ability to maintain a body. Shortly after transferring into the body of the alchemist Lyra, Dante finds that her body is actually begining to rot. Dante discovered the technique about four hundred years before that start of the series. She and Hohenheim--her lover at the time-- had created a Philosopher's Stone using those convicted of witchcraft and those dying of plauge as raw materials. Although the transmutation sucessfully created a Philosopher's Stone, Hohenheim was killed in the processes. Dante instinctively grabbed hold of Hohenheim's soul and attached it to the body of another man. Dante and Hohenheim lived for centuries using this technique. The pair had a child, a son who died of mercury poisoning at a young age. Hohenheim's attempt to ressurect him via alchemy created the Hommunculus Envy. Dante and Hohenheim created at least two other Philosopher's Stones, using the inhabitants of ancient cities as ingredients. One was "a fabled lost city to the East," actually Hohenheim's home city; the other was located where Central, the capital of Amestris now stands. Once the living residents had been transmuted into a Philosopher's Stone, the buildings were buried using alchemy. At some point, Hohenheim and Dante had a falling out, after which Hohenheim left her. He would go on to form a new family with Trisha Elric; Dante had to fend for herself. While she still had the Philosopher's Stone, it's stored energy was almost depleted. Unwilling or unable to create a new one herself, Dante seeks to manipulate others into creating one for her. Unable to do the necessary footwork herself, she searches for newly created Hommunculi, and gains their trust by telling them she could change them into true humans, if she had a Philosopher's Stone. The Hummunculi thus become Dante's servants, aiding her in the creation of a Philosopher's Stone. The Hommunculi believe Dante is their benefactor, but in reality she sees them as tools. Dante intends to keep the Stone for herself in order to continue cheating death. She has no intention of making the hommunculi true humans-- something which may be impossible anyway. Of the seven hommunculi, only two (Pride and Envy) are aware of the truth. They serve her anyway. Pride does so in exchange for power and adulation, while Envy does it in order to kill humans. Reasoning that only a person with nothing left to loose would be willing to sacrifice the enormous number of human lives needed to create a stone, she uses the hommunculi to stir up continuous warfare, hoping to motivate a desperate alchemist to create a Philosopher's Stone, which the Homunculi would then steal for her. Pride, as the Führer of Amestris, is probably the most useful in this regard. To this end, she orchestrates the slaughters in Ishbal and Lior, and later, to cover her tracks, she orders Pride to attack Drachma, a country to the north. In the latter campaign, she plans to use the chaos on the front lines as a cover for the planned assassinations of Roy Mustang and his subordinates by Envy. Envy aborted his mission upon hearing that Dante had disposed of Hohenheim and refused to help until she reminded him of the Elric brothers had the Stone, giving Envy the pleasure to kill Ed (whom Envy percieves as his replacement) and acquire the Stone, which is part of Alphonse. Dante needs that Stone badly, because Lyra's body began to rot shortly after to she transferred her soul into it. Unwilling to accept death, Dante intends to use the Elric's Stone to transfer once again, this time into the body of Rose. Dante hopes that using Rose as a vessel will allow her to control Edward, and that he will become her lover in place of Hohenheim. After Edward refuses to help her, Dante breaks the unity of his mind, body and spirit, and casts him into The Gate. When Edward finds his way back, he is killed by Envy. The shock of Ed's death allows Rose to escape Dante's control, and causes Alphonse to ressurect Edward with the power of the Philosopher's Stone, which uses up all of its power. With her plans ruined, Dante flees, searching for Pride so that he can help her take revenge, but she is trapped and swallowed by the now-mindless Gluttony. Last Words:You don't understand, do you Gluttony? Just hold on, we'll find you something to eat soon, okay? Personality and abilities Dante's personality and motivation are very enigmatic. She is manipulative, single-minded, devious and vindictive. In her long years as a parasitic soul, moving from body to body, her personality has apparently changed considerably: as Hohenheim lay dying after creating the Philosopher's Stone she rushed to save him, but now she cares little for the lives of others, believing those who die in order to preserve her life to be "necessary martyrs." Dante exhibits a misanthropic view of the world, believing most human beings to be "selfish, ignorant creatures", unworthy of the knowledge of alchemy and the Philosopher's Stone. As such, she has no qualms over starting wars or taking countless lives, as she is convinced that she is ultimately protecting mankind from itself. This is all Dante cares about, global politics and wars are just mean nothing to her, she has control of Ametris through her Homunculus Pride, and uses the whole country as a tool to gain the Stone. Dante is an amazingly skilled alchemist - probably the second most powerful, after Hohenheim, featured in the series. Like Hohenheim, Ed, and Izumi (and later Al) she can transmute without a circle, completing complex transmutations just by clapping her hands. Though she has never crafted a Philosopher's Stone herself, it is not because she lacks the skill or knowledge but more likely because she fears the consequences; when Hohenheim first forged a Stone it nearly killed him. She also possesses other abilities that go beyond normal alchemy: she is able to summon the Gate using infants (whose souls are more strongly linked to the Gate than those of adults), transform Gluttony from a childish fool into a ravenous monster, and split the mind, soul and body of Hohenheim before sending him into the Gate. Dante is also the only known person to attempt a human transmutation specifically in order to create Homunculi (Greed, Pride, and possibly Gluttony). She uses the symbol of a winged snake fixed on a cross (called a flamel), which is passed on to Izumi, and then to the Elric brothers. It is meaningful that the symbol is the opposite of the Ouroboros worn by the Homunculi. It represents a fixation on the volatile principle in alchemy, as opposed to the endless cycle represented by Ouroboros. In Dante's case, the symbol likely represents her belief that she is immortal and has conquered the cycle of birth and death represented by the Ouroboros. In real life, it is a symbol associated with the 15th-century alchemist Nicholas Flamel, who claimed to have created a Philosopher's Stone and used it to achieve immortality (one of the two main goals of alchemy, along with the creation of gold from lead). Trivia *She may possibly be named after the Italian poet Dante Alighieri, author of "The Divine Comedy", which depicts a journey through Hell, Purgatory, and finally, Paradise. *Dante shares many similarities with her manga counterpart, Father. Both, at one point, had close relationships with Hohenheim dating back several centuries. Both "shared" the secret of eternal life with Hohenheim by means of the Philosopher's Stone. Finally, both plan to turn mass numbers of people into Stones in order to become "perfect" beings. *An elderly woman almost identical to Dante makes a brief cameo in Episode 58 of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. *Dante and Izumi Curtis are voiced by the same voice actress in both the Japanese and English versions of the 2003 series. Category:Characters Category:Alchemist Category:Deceased